UAE Salaries To Grow 5.1% In 2013

Employees in the UAE can expect salary increases of around 5.1 per cent in 2013, almost the same as the 5.2 per cent hike this year, according to the latest salary survey by Aon Hewitt.

While banks in the country are projecting an 8.1 per cent salary rise next year, pharmaceutical and chemical sectors are giving a 5.8 per cent increase, machinery and equipment sector a 4.1 per cent hike, and the transportation, logistics and shipping services, a 2.5 per cent increase.

The majority of organisations in the UAE give salary increases based on employee performance, said the report.

The annual survey, which spoke to 500 organisations from 26 sectors in the Middle East, found that the biggest salary increases for 2013 are expected in Egypt at 9.5 per cent, while a 6.08 per cent rise was projected for the region as a whole.

In the GCC, the survey estimated an average salary hike of 5.4 per cent for 2013, the same as the projection made in 2011 for 2012.

“This indicates that organisations continue to show confidence in the economic stability of the region,” Aon Hewitt said in a statement.

While Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are expected to see the biggest wage increases in the GCC at 5.8 per cent next year, Oman and Qatar follow closely with 5.6 per cent, the UAE came next with 5.1 per cent, and Bahrain is expected to see the smallest hike at 4.7 per cent.

Martin McGuigan, head of Reward Consulting, Aon Hewitt Middle East said: “At large, there are no further reductions in the salary increase projections for the next year which is good news for employees.

“We have also observed that organisations have increasingly been linking salary increases to performance, which is a healthy trend and indicates the increasing maturity level of the market.”

The report also found that fewer organisations in the Middle East are thinking about salary freezes. Only 1.3 per cent of organisations in the UAE have projected a salary freeze in 2013 compared to 4.1 per cent in 2012.

However, the major exception to this trend is Qatar where at least eight per cent of the corporates expect a wage freeze in 2013.

“This may be attributed to the high salary increase given to Qatari national employees in 2011, with organisations now trying to induce market competitiveness to normalise the impact,” the report added.